Donors and Equitable Partnership with National and Local Actors: What aid donors can and must do

This GMI paper complements and expands two key guidance notes from the Grand Bargain Workstream on Localisation: Guidance Note on Humanitarian Financing for Local Actors, and Guidance Note on Arrangements between Donors and Intermediaries. (May 2020). Both contain relevant tips but, like the Grand Bargain and other commitment pledges from international actors, do not explain why this is important or why the international relief sector has been resilient (sic) to change for decades?

International operational agencies argue it is donor practices that prevent them from making the changes committed to; donors on the other hand hold that it is the international operational agencies that resist change? This GMI paper speaks primarily to bilateral and multilateral donors of relief aid but is relevant also for certain private foundations and philanthropists. The full report contains extensive references that underpin the general observations